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Experimental Study of Limit Cycle and Chaotic Controllers for the Locomotion of Centipede Robots

2008

Conference Paper

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In this contribution we present a CPG (central pattern generator) controller based on coupled Rossler systems. It is able to generate both limit cycle and chaotic behaviors through bifurcation. We develop an experimental test bench to measure quantitatively the performance of different controllers on unknown terrains of increasing difficulty. First, we show that for flat terrains, open loop limit cycle systems are the most efficient (in terms of speed of locomotion) but that they are quite sensitive to environmental changes. Second, we show that sensory feedback is a crucial addition for unknown terrains. Third, we show that the chaotic controller with sensory feedback outperforms the other controllers in very difficult terrains and actually promotes the emergence of short synchronized movement patterns. All that is done using an unified framework for the generation of limit cycle and chaotic behaviors, where a simple parameter change can switch from one behavior to the other through bifurcation. Such flexibility would allow the automatic adaptation of the robot locomotion strategy to the terrain uncertainty.

Author(s): Matthey, L. and Righetti, L. and Ijspeert, A.J.
Book Title: 2008 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems
Pages: 1860--1865
Year: 2008
Month: sep
Publisher: IEEE

Department(s): Movement Generation and Control
Bibtex Type: Conference Paper (inproceedings)

DOI: 10.1109/IROS.2008.4650999

Address: Nice, France
URL: http://biorob2.epfl.ch/pages/studproj/birg67190/matthey08.pdf

BibTex

@inproceedings{matthey_experimental_2008,
  title = {Experimental {Study} of {Limit} {Cycle} and {Chaotic} {Controllers} for the {Locomotion} of {Centipede} {Robots}},
  author = {Matthey, L. and Righetti, L. and Ijspeert, A.J.},
  booktitle = {2008 {IEEE}/{RSJ} {International} {Conference} on {Intelligent} {Robots} and {Systems}},
  pages = {1860--1865},
  publisher = {IEEE},
  address = {Nice, France},
  month = sep,
  year = {2008},
  doi = {10.1109/IROS.2008.4650999},
  url = {http://biorob2.epfl.ch/pages/studproj/birg67190/matthey08.pdf},
  month_numeric = {9}
}